Matt D

I kind of want to start tagging notes that are part of the JVK vs JDW feud to try to make narrative sense of it.

I couldn't get anyone to touch this before: Shawn and Razor only went :17 long?

I actually really hope we get a Christian/Someone tag run this year. His skill at match layout and ability to switch up his face offense would make him just about perfect for a bunch of 2014 style wwe tag matches.

"Bob Armstrong worked against his sons Steve & Scott, who are heels in the local Peach State promotion, in a cage match on 5/30(/94) in Cordele, GA. Armstrong & The Blazers (R.D. Swain & Ray Lloyd) beat Scott & Steve with manager Mad Jack." I have no idea who Swain is but come on, that match had to be a metric ton of fun.

Was there any talk that Dolph and AJ split due to Punk?

The follow up then is whether or not the claims of Dudley's importance that have come up since are valid. Even Vince, in 1994, didn't try to sell him as something more than a "manager extraordinaire."

Kris, Does any of that peach state exist? I love the idea of Scott and Steve Armstrong as heels going up against their dad.

Meltzer was very negative on the James Dudley WWF Hall of Fame induction in 1994, taking multiple shots at it including this one after talking about Ladd going into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Hodge going into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. "Wonder if either of those Hall of Fames has inducted any chauffeurs lately?" I know the general sentiment about Dudley now is a lot more positive. Did Dave ever change his tune on this?

Around the time they were putting Flair with Miz, I was hoping he'd turn on him and go with Dolph as sort of a new Nature Boy thing.

What's the deal with Disco almost becoming Rockabilly. He seems a guy that the WWF would have loved. Had he just burned that bridge by 2001?

I really like the Halloween Havoc Flair turn in 1995. It's so inevitable. There's no stopping it. Yes, Sting's an idiot, but he's also aware of the possibility. He knows it's coming and the payoff isn't just a new Horsemen but the idea that Flair's gone too far this time and Sting is going to crush him.

And the way they do define Dolph is tricky. He wants to be the showoff and have the best "performance" of the night, which is kind of hard to fit into the traditional narrative. Is he like a ballhog in the NBA who wants to win, sure, but wants to score as many points as possible and get on sportscenter a lot in the process? It comes off too much as him wanting to have the best fake match of the night. I do think his act with Big E and AJ was pretty well framed but they admittedly botched that about as much as humanly possible.

That's so basic a thing, I'm not sure how I'd refer to it. Chaining moves together is a specific thing. Varying offense and "keeping things interesting" is again, another specific thing. Actually, I refer to that as "negative space" a lot, especially when talking about Mark Henry, since it's something that stands out with him.

I'm not saying every guy in the WWE who listens to what management wants gets ahead. I get the feeling that Yoshi Tatsu follows those directions, for instance. One sure way of NOT getting ahead, however, is to completely disregard them. I don't think Chris Hero got let go because he wasn't in shape. I think he got let go because he refused to listen to them when they told him to get in shape. It's close to the same thing but not quite. Neither here nor there, but does anyone know how the CM Punk trademark works? Could WWE even bring in Corey Graves as a fake CM Punk with the gimmick/music/etc? if they wanted to (and Vince probably doesn't since according to Dave he wants his #2 merch seller back if possible). If they can do it, I still think they should bring him in as the Authority's Corporate Rebel at the Chicago Raw and then feed him to Bryan or someone. The heat that would get there would be colossal.

I think plot point is a really good way to look at transitions. "act break" is another. Or Momentum shift. Plot point is probably because because theoretically you could transition without changing who's in control. It could be a change in strategy as well. To me, good transitions is up there with consistent selling and throughline continuity in a match for what really makes matches great.

I think in the end, while it's good to see what other people are doing, there are a lot of options out there. All of us spend so much of our time here because here is not there. PWO is great.

I'm not sure I'm looking to "help" Dolph so much as find a role that he's effective and well used in? Being a face in peril in very good matches vs Real Americans for the tag titles feels about where he should be at.

Frankly, I think he could work really well as a face in peril in a tag team. Most of his offense would work better for hope spots/hot tag set ups than actual damaging offense. I'm not sure who I'd want to put with him, though. Maybe Kofi long term. I bet Kofi's stuff would work better as a cleaning house hot tag?

She did. Including being part of one of the oddest annouce teams ever with Bruce Prichard and Pete Doherty. Oddest and most painful.

Wow, the new board ran roughshod over my formatting of these things. Also, there were some gaps on what got posted on youtube so I'm reevaluating what to do moving forward. I know I can find one or two of the matches undated as is. Very likely I'll just do the best I can. I know Dylan wanted me to get to the Dynamite Kid stuff in 82 (I think) so I will soldier on. That battle royal is one of my favorites ever, I think, by the by.

Oh hey! I saw this match two weeks ago. Let me put my DVDVR comments here: The bodyslam to the floor spot in this match is really clever. I hate that Kikuchi doesn't sell it. The transition to tag was pretty memorable but it led to a reset instead of a Malenko kills everyone segment which was a little disappointing. I think Malenko was really good at portraying a sense of struggle. Kikuchi falling off the ropes has maybe the best recovery I've ever seen as Rogers just immediately takes over without even a second's hesitation. Good on him. It's so well done you have to wonder if it was planned. The subsequent kickout after the piledriver on the floor is total bullshit though. It's fine to have that not end the match but have Malenko break up the pin if you're going to do that. Fantastics double second rope dropkick is so cool but leads to another bullshit kick out. Rogers is really good at changing direction on the fly. The head plant at 9:57 is scary. Holy jeez. The subsequent kickout is bullshit. Match didn't have enough Malenko. It's pretty much a surreal beating of Kikuchi with the Fantastics kicking out insane offense and Kikuchi kicking out of all of it. I'm not going to say it wasn't fun candy though.

I think we need to stop calling ourself a "message board" and start calling ourselves a Thinktank.

It's funny how we end up associating people with their avatars. I hope Bobby Davis wasn't a really terrible person.

We are going to be educating the new generation in 2021.

Did anyone else have that moment where they went to the site and thought: "Wait, I typed P not D. Why am I on the D site?"